Jeremiah 10:2-4 Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at them. (3) For the customs of the people are vain? for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. (4) They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.
The prophecy of Jeremiah the prophet was: Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen... the customs of the people are vain ...
This book sets forth the truth taken straight from history on the origin of the holidays and the origin of the customs associated with their celebration. Throughout this book I will be using sections taken directly from various encyclopedias and books on the holidays. history reveals that Christmas, New Year's, etc. all originated in BABYLON as festivals celebrated by the heathen in honor of their pagan gods, but were given "Christian" meaning by the Catholic Church in order to convert the idol worshippers to Constantine's new "christian" religion. The catholic church simply took these seasonal feasts and festivals celebrated by the idolatrous heathen and "transformed" them into "christian" celebrations, or "christianized" them, in order to make Christianity more meaningful to pagan converts.
The same philosophy responsible for the development of the trinity doctrine is also responsible for the transformation of these pagan feasts, and no One-God worshipper of Jesus Christ will again take up the celebration of these idolatrous holidays after reading this book. God said through the prophet: learn not the way of the heathen!. Rev. 18:4 says: And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, come out of her. My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
CHRISTMAS: Throughout this chapter, I will be referring to and sometimes printing the exact information found in "Christmas and its Customs," by Christina Hole; "Christmas Traditions," by William Muir Auld; "Celebrations," by Robert J. Myers; "4000 years of Christmas, " by Earl W. Count and "1001 Christmas Facts and Fancies," by Alfred Carl Hottes.
It's beginning in Mesopotamia:
The celebration of Christmas actually outdates Christianity itself by about 4000 years!. It began in an ancient Babylonian festival thousands of years before the birth of Christ in Bethlehem. From"4000 Years of Christmass" we read: "Christmas began there in Mesopotamia over 4000 years ago as the festival which renewed the world for another year. The "Twelve Days" of Christmas; the bright fires and probably the Yule log; the giving of presents; carnivals with their floats; merrymakings and clownings; the mummers singing and playing from house to house; the feastings; church processions with their lights and song-- all these and more began there centuries before Christ was born."
This ancient Babylonian festival moved westward through Greece into Rome, merging with the Roman Saturnalia festival, where finally under the "Christian" influence of the new religion of the Roman Empire (Constantine had united church and state making Christianity the official state religion) it became "Christianized." There still remain the merrymaking, the giving of gifts, the feasting, and the special log, but now these are with praise to the Christian god.
-to be continued-